A rolling mill stand generally comprises a plurality of working rolls which, if necessary, are braced by backup rolls or a combination of backup rolls and intermediate rolls.
The working rolls and/or the supporting rolls and/or the intermediate rolls can be axially shiftable relatively in the rolling mill and are provided with a substantially curved shape over their entire body length. At least two such rolls are relatively shiftable axially to adjust the gap width or shape.
This type of rolling mill is described in European Pat. No. 0 091 540 in which the curved contours of the rolls is also described.
A typical roll of this type consists of a convex portion and a concave portion and the body contours of the cooperating commonly supported rolls are complementary in a definite axial relative position relative to each other attained by axially sliding the rolls.
Thus not only the uniformity of the pressing force distribution over the contact length of two adjacent rolls is improved, but also the continuous mechanical control of the form of the roll gap is improved.